Proverbs
by paperstorm
Summary: Part of my Deleted Scenes series. The tag for 'Good God, Y'all'. Implied past Wincest.


**Contains dialogue from the episode Good God, Y'all. It belongs to Eric Kripke and Sera Gamble.  
**

**Part of my Deleted Scenes series. Full list of fics in reading order available on my profile page. They will make more sense if read in order. :)**

* * *

_A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity._

_Proverbs 17:17_

Dean stops him before Sam reaches the stairs. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Why don't I just go?"

Sam frowns. "What, alone?"

"Yeah, somebody's gotta stay here and start givin' 'em Shotgun 101."

"Yeah, Ellen."

Sam goes for the stairs again but Dean puts a hand on his chest. "No, no. It's gonna go a lot faster if you stay and help, okay?"

"While you go get guns and salt and look for Jo and Rufus?" Sam asks with a raised eyebrow. "That's stupid."

"I can handle it," Dean replies cockily, and then Sam realizes with a sinking feeling in his stomach what's going on.

"You don't want me going out there."

"I didn't say that."

"Around demons."

"I didn't say that!" Dean repeats. It doesn't matter. He didn't need to say it for Sam to know what he meant.

"Fine, then let's go," Sam snaps, and brushes past his brother on his way up the stairs.

He's pissed, both at Dean and himself. He knows he brought this on, he knows he deserves Dean's loss of faith in him. But Sam's still a hunter, he can still do his job. Dean doesn't have to trust him, he doesn't even have to _like_ him right now because Sam certainly doesn't like himself, but he doesn't need to act like Sam's just going to fly off the handle at any minute and start carving into random demons for a fix. As much as Dean tried to compare Sam to some kind of drug addict, that isn't ever what it was. Sam never drank Ruby's blood because he enjoyed it. He did it because he believed it was something he had to do. Sam gets that Dean's mad, and that's fine, but he's hurt that Dean won't even _try_ to understand.

They get outside and walk the few blocks to the store in tension thick silence, with their eyes pealed and their guns cocked. When they get there, Sam says, "I'll get the salt, you get the guns."

"No, we'll go together."

"Dean, it's _right_ there," Sam grinds out, his temper boiling just under the surface. "Can we at least do this like professionals?"

He doesn't wait for an answer before he walks away from his brother. Inside the convenience store, Sam finds the aisle with boxes of salt and loads a few of them into a bag. There he hears the metallic clang of the door opening, and he peers over the shelves, hoping it's just Dean. It isn't. Two kids with black eyes look around briefly before walking further into the store, and Sam's heart leaps into his throat. His gun is too far away from him to grab without making noise, sitting on top of soup cans just out of Sam's reach because he's an idiot. One of the kids makes his way to the drink cooler right in front of where Sam's crouched, heart racing; but he's facing the cooler and doesn't know Sam's there. Sam moves slowly, carefully, trying to get to the shotgun without making noise. He fails, and the kid rushes at him, wrapping his hands around Sam's throat.

Though a painfully constricted windpipe, Sam tries to rattle off an exorcism but it doesn't work – the demon doesn't even react and knocks the salt out of Sam's hands like it's nothing. On instinct, Sam whips the knife out of his pocket and pushes it into the kid's stomach. He looks around quickly for the other one and it attacks him from behind, welding a baseball bat, but Sam's quicker and he manages to jam the knife through its throat. The kid falls to the ground next to his friend and Sam pants, adrenaline rushing through his veins.

Then he looks down and sees the blood. Pools of it where it's dribbling from their wounds, dark and thick and shiny on the dirty flood. Sam blinks. His skin prickles, his heartbeat keeps on racing even though the danger is gone. He looks at the knife in his hand; lifts it up to see it better, and watches as the red liquid drips down over the etched blade. He knows how it would taste if he licked it, warm and metallic, and he knows how it would _feel_ as soon as it hit his own bloodstream. Power, strength, invincibility. Sam rubs his thumb along the flat side of the blade, his breath quickening again as he stares at the contrast of the blood to the color of his own skin. The way it catches the light, how he can barely feel it on his skin.

The bell over the door rings out again and Sam's heart stops for a few beats, his head spinning and his mind racing and nothing making sense anymore. Then his brother's voice growls, "Sammy?" and Sam sighs in relief.

Whether it's relief that it's Dean and not another demon, or relief that Dean showed up before Sam could do something he'd regret, Sam doesn't know. He's not sure he wants to know, either.

Dean comes around to the end of the aisle, his gun ready in case Sam's still under attack, and then his eyes widen as he takes in the sight of Sam and two bodies. Sam still feels caught, even though he didn't do anything wrong, and the way Dean's jaw clenches and he gets that disappointed look in his eyes makes Sam feel even worse.

"I had to," Sam hears himself saying, even though there has never been a moment in their lives where Sam has had to justify the killing of a demon to Dean.

"They were demons?" Dean half-asks, and the fact that he questions it has Sam's stomach clenching.

"You think I would've killed them if they weren't?" he demands.

"I didn't say that," Dean says for the third time, although this time he sounds like he actually means it. "And no, of course I don't think that."

Sam nods a little, and then he looks at Dean again and follows Dean's eye-line – he's looking at the bloody knife in Sam's hand. "I didn't do anything," Sam protests weakly.

"Didn't do what?" Dean asks, and he knows damn-well what. He's just trying to make Sam say it, trying to make Sam admit to what he maybe would have done if Dean hadn't walked in when he did.

Sam's not admitting anything. He turns away from his brother and steps over the body behind him, trying desperately not to think about how neither of them could have been older than sixteen and a few short weeks ago, Sam could have sent the demons back to Hell without killing the innocent kids they were riding. "Let's just go."

* * *

Sam stares at the ring Dean is passing between his thumb and fingers and tries to wrap his head around what it means that the Horsemen, the actual _Horsemen of the Apocalypse_, are real, are _here_; are something they're going to have to deal with in the coming months. He can't do it, so he tries to stop thinking about it. It's too surreal, too far removed from anything Sam's ever known, and in his crazy nightmare of a life that's saying something.

Then he thinks about the blood again. About how it felt to see it, about how much he longed, craved, _needed_ to lick it off the blade and give himself that rush, that feeling of being unbreakable. He wasn't expecting that, and it shook him. It made him reconsider … everything. And it made him decide something that Dean isn't going to be happy about.

"So, pit-stop on Mount Doom?" Dean asks, looking at the ring in his hand.

Sam laughs a little through his nose, but doesn't feel happiness. He wonders if maybe he never will again. "Dean …"

"Sam, let's not."

"No, this is important," Sam insists. "I know you don't trust me. Just … now I realize something. I don't trust me either. From the minute I saw that blood, the only thought in my head … and I tell myself it's for the right reasons, that my intentions are good, and it – it feels true, you know?"

Dean looks down at the picnic table between them. Sam can't tell if Dean believes him or not, that he never meant for any of this to happen, that he really thought he was doing the right things.

"But I think underneath … I just miss the feeling," Sam continues. "I know how messed up that sounds, which means I know how messed up I _am_. The thing is, the problem's not the demon blood. Not really. I mean, I – what I did, I can't blame the blood, or Ruby, or … anything."

Dean somehow looks emotionless and like he's about to break at the same time. It hurts Sam more than he could express, knowing he's the reason for that look on his brother's face.

"The problem is me. How far I'll go. There's something in me, that … that scares the hell outta me, Dean." He feels stripped completely bare admitting that, but Dean deserves the truth. After everything Sam's done, Dean deserves at _least_ that. "And the last couple days, I caught another glimpse."

"So what're you saying?" Dean asks quietly.

"I'm in no shape to be hunting. I need to step back, 'cause I'm dangerous." That's the truth too, and Dean needs to hear it even if he won't like it. "Maybe it's best we just … go our separate ways."

Sam's prepared for Dean to refuse, to yell, to call him an idiot – he's prepared for just about everything except for what happens. Dean closes his eyes, the twisted expression on his face like he's in physical pain, and then he says, "Well, I think you're right."

"I was expecting a fight," Sam mumbles. He can't deny how much it hurts that Dean wants them to split up too.

"The truth is I spend more time worrying about you than about doing the job right. I just, I can't afford that, you know? Not now."

Sam nods. It tears him up inside, but Dean's right. This is Sam's mess but Dean's the one who's going to have to clean it up, and Sam can't get in the way of that. His voice comes out small and broken when he whispers, "I'm sorry, Dean."

"I know you are, Sam." He looks like he means that. "Hey, you, uh … you wanna take the Impala?"

Sam manages to let a small smile come up through all the heartache. That's just like Dean; always wanting to take care of Sam even when things are as bad between them as they've ever been. "That's okay."

Dean nods and won't look at him, so Sam stands up and takes a few steps away. He can't leave it like that, though, so he turns around one last time and adds, "Take care of yourself, Dean."

"Yeah, you too, Sammy," Dean returns stoically.

Sam goes to the Impala and gets his bags out of the backseat. There's a truck stopped on the road, and the driver opens the door and tosses a friendly smile in Sam's direction.

"Where're you headed?" he asks.

"Anywhere," Sam answers.

The driver eyes him warily for a moment, but then nods at the passenger's seat beside him and says, "Get in."

Sam does, and he doesn't look back as the truck pulls away from the rest stop – away from Dean. He can't. It would hurt too much.

He manages not to cry in front of a complete stranger, but it's a near miss. There have been a lot of moments in Sam's life where he's felt like shit about himself, but this is by far the worst. It's all his fault. All of it. He was so _stupid_. He was so convinced that he was doing the right thing, so sure it was the only way to save the world from the Apocalypse, and instead he's the reason for it. Everything that happens now, every single person who dies or gets caught in the crossfire as the angels and demons go for each other's throats, that's all on Sam. Six billion people are going to die, and it's completely Sam's fault.

The worst part of all of it, worse than the inevitable casualties and the broken, poisonous way Sam feels inside, is that he did this, all of this, for Dean. He did it to get revenge for Dean's time in Hell, yes, but mostly? He did it because as much as Sam tried to help, Dean didn't get better. The way Dean tossed and whimpered in his sleep and then refused to talk about it, how completely he broke when he finally _did_ talk about it, the haunted look in his eyes that wasn't going away – it was too much for Sam to just put up with and not do anything about. Ruby promised him that icing Lilith would fix Dean, heal him in some way, and Sam knows now it was a bold-faced lie but at the time? He believed it like he believes in gravity. He believed it because it made _sense_. But it ruined everything. It ruined the most important thing in Sam's life. And now there's a chance he'll never get Dean back, at least not like he had him. The thought alone makes Sam feel like he can't breathe.

There is one thing that brings Sam a small amount of comfort. A few days ago in the hospital, when Cas asked Dean for the amulet, the one Sam gave him, Dean was more than reluctant to part with it. Sam knows it isn't much. It certainly doesn't undo the fact that when Sam said he was leaving, Dean just let him go. But there's a tiny, foolishly optimistic part of Sam hoping against all hope that the amulet still meaning something to Dean means that _Sam_ still means something to Dean. It's minuscule, in the scheme of things, but it's something. So maybe Sam just has to give Dean some space, for now. Until he can think up some way to make up for everything he's done. And maybe they won't ever be what they were, but maybe, eventually, Dean will find a way to forgive him.

Sam could really use that right about now, since he knows there's no way he will ever, ever forgive himself.


End file.
